Visible Symptoms
Applejack woke up and immediately wished she hadn't. Every muscle in her body was in pain. Even her ears felt tired. She hadn't felt this worn out since that disastrous one-mare applebuck season, and she hadn't even done anything yet!
Well, the day she let herself stay in bed because of a little soreness was the day you could stick her in a rocker, give her dentures, and call her an old nag. No offense to Granny Smith, of course. Still, she was a farmhoof, and her hooves had farming to do, no matter what the rest of her tried to say on the matter.
So, muscle aches and all, she went downstairs like any other day. "Mornin', y'all."
Apple Bloom's voice answered her from the kitchen "Mornin', AJ! Y' sleep okay?"
"Good enough." Her stomach interjected. Loudly. The orange mare blushed. "Reckon Ah could use some breakfast, though."
"Then get yer lazy carcass in here an' help!" cried Granny Smith.
"Yes ma'am!"
Dash awoke with a drawn-out yawn, her usual regimen of early morning stretches, and a wince as those stretches brought out a burning pain in her chest. It wasn't lactic acid buildup, (what, she wasn't allowed to know how her own body worked?) but it was equally familiar.
"Ugh, no more chili dogs before bed," the speedster told herself. There was heartburn, and then there was this. It felt like that one escape scene from Daring Do and the Alliterative Ankh, except her stomach was filling in for the lava-filled Citadel of Saimstartinsaund.
Dash's fond recollections of the pulp heoine were interrupted when she noticed something weird on her mattress. Were those...? No. No, they couldn't be. That wasn't possible. It was too late. Or too early. Or... something, she didn't know. The point was, there was no way there were that many feathers on her bed. Sure, the occasional plume now and again, but this? This looked more like... Like...
Doubt began to gnaw at the mare's confidence. Hesitantly, she spread one wing and took in much more ragged plumage than she'd had when she'd gone to bed. Dash swallowed the growing lump in her throat and tugged lightly at a primary.
It came away without the slightest pain or resistance.
The lump hit her stomach and kept going, leaving a yawning pit of anxiety. "No." She checked the other wing. Just as ragged, just as weak. "No."
It would seem odd for somepony who already lives in clouds to scream to the heavens, but Rainbow Dash did it anyway. "NOOOOOO!"
Certain things were understood to be constant in the Apple farmstead. The sun rose in the east. Unpicked Zap Apples vanished in a burst of electricity. Big Macintosh got the last flapjack at breakfast.
Applejack's brain knew all of this. Her stomach had apparently forgotten the last one, and worse, had gotten a foreleg to conspire with it. That was the only explanation she had for why she was currently trying to stare down her big brother as each of them stabbed a fork and staked a claim on the precious foodstuff.
Apple Bloom and Granny Smith glanced at one another nervously. The tension was thick in the air. It felt like the silent contest of wills would last for an eternity.
Finally, Applejack broke the stalemate with a grin. "Wanna split it?"
Mac considered this for a moment. "Eeyup."
The other Apples breathed a sigh of relief. Unstoppable force and immovable object would not meet. Not this day. Still, the status quo had irrevocably shifted. The pebble had fallen. It was anypony's guess what manner of avalanche would result.
"Mmph." Rarity winced as she inched her way out from under her covers. In her current discomfort, it felt like their luxuriant thread count had dropped by half. Every motion of a leg, from shoulder and stifle down to the pasterns, ached.
The designer allowed herself a smirk. "The last time I was this sore," she mused, "the circumstances were much more enjoyable."
Eventually, she got herself out of bed, only to gasp as she tried to stand up. She collapsed, then moaned as even that brought on further pain. "Can't even support my own weight," she thought aloud. "This is not looking good for you, old girl. Maybe if I..."
Rarity struggled back to her hooves, gritting her teeth and locking her knees until the aches faded from daggers in her joints to a background burn. Now that she could focus, she enveloped her legs in sapphire energy. Relaxing the makeshift splint on her front left leg, she took a step forward. Then she bolstered that support and repeated the process with the back right. Front right. Back left. Front left. Back right.
Of course, the moment the fashionista had a rhythm going, she was faced with her next challenge for the day. "Stairs..."
Fluttershy awoke in her bathroom and panicked for a brief moment before the events of the night came back to her. The memories came as relief. She didn't think that she was the kind of mare who'd go barhopping until the point of total blackout, bring home a strange stallion, and be forced to live with the decision of a moment for the rest of her life, but she didn't really know for certain. It was nice to see that that wasn't the case.
She looked around for Angel, only to find a note taped to her muzzle. Her eyes crossed in a way dangerous to those with weak hearts, she pulled the memo away from her nose.
Fluttershy,
Went to rally my people to arms. Will be back by dinner. We're out of milk.
Angel
The gentle pegasus wasn't quite sure what to make of this. She knew her friend was no ordinary bunny, but this seemed a bit outside of her expectations. Well, at least she knew what she needed to pick up at the market today. So considerate.
Further reflection was interrupted by a cottage-shaking assault on her front door backed with an anguished cry of "Fluttershyyyyyy!"
The pink-maned mare hurried to the door. Upon opening it, she recoiled a bit in surprise. "R-rainbow Dash?"
Her brash friend looked terrible. Her mane lacked even the signs of cursory maintenence the speedster usually provided. Her eyes were bloodshot and still moist with tears. Her usual cocky demeanor had been replaced by a wallow in misery that Rarity would be proud of. And her wings. Oh sun and moon, her wings...
Fluttershy snapped into action. Relatively speaking. "Okay," she cooed, "come on in and tell me all about it."
Dash sniffled as she entered the cottage, dignity discarded in her depression. "What's to tell? Just look at me, Shy."
"Molting is a perfectly natural phenomenon—"
"Yeah, in early spring. We did Spring Suspension, like, two weeks ago. I'm not supposed to be molting for almost another year." The blue mare shoved her muzzle distressingly close to her friend's. "Don't you know what this means?"
"Um, well, it could be, I..." Maternal instincts, social anxiety, and fillyhood crushes, reflected some detached part of Fluttershy's mind, do not mix well.
"I'm gonna be wingbald! Barren! Plucked! I'm not gonna be able to give a flying feather 'cause I won't have any feathers and I sure as hay won't be flying!" Dash leapt for the couch and buried her face in her forehooves. "My life is ruined!"
The yellow-coated pony hesitated. What did you say to somepony who was being denied her special talent? How did you comfort Loyalty when her body betrayed her? "It's... it's not as bad as that—"
The younger pegasus looked up. "No, you're right." Fluttershy allowed herself a moment of relief. She quickly regretted it. "It's worse! I'm not even gonna be a pegasus anymore! I'm gonna just be some weird earth pony with a pair of freaky mutant legs! I won't be able to get back to my house! I glided out today 'cause I was afraid I'd lose more feathers if I flapped!" Dash sniffed and looked to her friend. "C-can I crash here? Forever?"
"They'll grow back."
"And who knows how long that'll take?"
Fluttershy sighed. She loved all her friends, she really did, but sometimes it was hard being one of the few ponies with any degree of sense in her social circle. "I'll be right back."
The blue mare shot her puppy-dog eyes that would've melted the heart of anypony who hadn't helped so many actual puppy dogs. "Y-you're just gonna leave me here?" She averted her gaze, glowering at a floorboard that had apparently offended her. "Fine. Go. See if I care."
"I'll be right back, Dash. If you're going to be staying here for a while, you should have some of your things to make you feel a bit more at home."
The speedster's head swung back, astonished and apologetic. "Y-you mean I can stay?"
"Yes, but while I'm at your house, I want you to go to the hospital." Fluttershy frowned at her friend's growing uncertainty. "This could be serious, and I simply don't have much experience treating ponies."
"But—"
"No buts, Rainbow. I want you back in the sky as soon as possible, and I'm sure you do too. The best way to do that is to get yourself looked at by a professional." She wasn't quite using The Stare, but Fluttershy's expression made it clear that she would brook no argument.
"...okay." Despite herself, Dash chuckled. "Thanks, Shy. Don't know what I'd do if you didn't keep my hooves in the clouds sometimes."
Fluttershy beamed. "It's what friends are for," she said warmly. "If you'd like, I'll go with you. For moral support."
"Could you?" The tomcolt caught herself and cleared her throat. That had been a bit too eager to be cool. Okay, she'd been a quivering pile of uncool since she nearly bust down the cottage door, but still. "Um, you know, just so I have somepony in my corner. If you feel like it. I mean, you wanted to get some stuff out of my house too, so you better go do that first." She paused and allowed herself a small, vulnerable smile. "But if you get done with that quickly, I guess you could try to see how I'm doing..."
If anything, the pink-maned mare's smile widened. Rainbow Dash being concerned with her image only meant she was already on the road to psychological recovery, if not physical. "Of course."
Applebloom left home, saddlebags packed for school, when a peculiar sound played against her ears. Though even Granny Smith's time-honored method of instinctual baking had not revealed the filly's special talent, she was still an Apple, and nature and nurture had both etched a degree of hereditary knowledge into her. The sound was close to an apple being eaten, but it was strangely... off.
The redhead glanced at the sun's position in the sky. She had a few minutes of wiggle room. She cantered to the source of the sound, next to one of the trees closest to the ranch. "Applejack?"
The mare turned at the sound of her name and swallowed. "Oh. Mornin', AB. Ain'tchya s'pposed t' be of t' school by now?"
"Ah got a few minutes 'fore Ah'll be late." The filly's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "So what were ya eatin'?"
"Eatin'?" Applejack's muzzle scrunched and her eyes darted from side to side. "Um, Ah..." She stopped herself and sighed. "Shoot, why am Ah gettin' all worked up over somethin' silly as this? Ah was just havin' a li'l snack. Didn't quite have enough at breakfast."
Her sister gave her an incredulous look. "But you an' Big Macintosh looked like y'all was gonna hoof wrestle fer the last flapjack! Yer still hungry?"
"'Fraid so," admitted Applejack. "Just had m'self a li'l grass, somethin' t' top me off."
"Uh huh." Bloom's tone matched her deadpan expression. "So how come there's splinters in yer teeth?"
"Huh?"
"Sis, if yer that hungry, just fix yerself somethin' else in the kitchen. Granny won't mind none." The filly gave her sister a peck on the cheek. "Ah gotta get goin'. Last day an' all. Love ya, sis!"
"Love ya." As Applejack watched her sister gallop off, her tongue worried at her teeth. Sure enough, there were bits of wood in there. The farmhoof looked behind her. There was a strip of bark missing from the tree next to her. She didn't remember eating it, but given the evidence...
"Somethin' ain't right here."
From Exploring the Æther for Fun and Profit, by Anna Kata
Chapter 8: Applied Translocation
The High-Mass Hyperspace Conveyor
This spell, as its colloquial name of "bulk teleport" implies, is optimized for masses far beyond those that can be conveyed through the use of the basic spacial wink. The required magical output is proportional to the square root of the transported mass rather than directly proportional, and is proportional to the square rather than the cube of the conventional distance between the points of departure and arrival.
This exponential reduction in required mana is the direct result of how the spell works. Rather than creating a short-lived hyperspacial tunnel between the two points, the bulk teleport moves its target along the transitional æther, the outer "skin" of the universe. (See Chapter 2: Structure of the Universe.) As a result, while greater mass can be carried across greater distances with this spell, the transit time is greatly increased as well. Rather than the nigh-instantaneous spacial wink, a bulk teleport can take anywhere from several minutes to several hours to deposit its cargo, depending on mass, distance, and the fickle behavior of the transitional æther itself. This unpredictability is one of the primary reasons why this spell has not seen widespread use in transportation.
While the bulk teleport usually requires less total magic to cast than the spacial wink, it is strongly recommended that a caster be confident in his or her ability to cast the wink before attempting this spell. The more elaborate ætheric manipulations are not for the amateur translocator. If entering and/or leaving somewhere outside of Equestria or regions with similar wards to guard against the potentially disastrous effects of translocular miscasts, this recommendation becomes imperative.
Note that the peculiar spacial, temporal, and magical properties of the transitional æther may result in anomalies in long-term magical items and effects. Examine all teleported artifacts and enchantments for abnormalities after arrival.
The citizens of Canterlot liked to think of themselves as a worldly group. Not callous or numb, just blessed with enough experience to find very little surprising. They lived in the same city as the mares responsible for guiding the heavens, after all. There weren't many events that could impress somepony like that.
Judging by the reactions in the Public Gardens, one such event was a gigantic tree appearing out of nowhere. Another was a dragon stepping onto that tree's balcony as though it were about to deliver a public address.
It was obviously a dragon. It simply couldn't be anything else. It stood bipedally, twice the height of a pony. Its scales were a dark indigo somewhere between a midnight sky and an old bruise, highlighted with bright acid green along the stomach and spinal crests. There was a serpentine aspect to it from the shoulders up: a sinuous neck, an elongated muzzle, a thin sable mustache. The rest of the body was unusually thin for such a creature, giving it a half-starved appearance. Its forelimbs were structured like the arms of a minotaur, taloned hands at its sides. Its legs were like those of the great tyrant lizards of the equatorial jungles, its long tail lazily sweeping from side to side as it kept the dragon balanced. Strangest of all were the wings, if they could even be called such. They sprouted from either side of its spine where its neck met its shoulders. Their shape was the familiar batlike curve one would expect, but there were no further digits or membrane within. Instead, there were green-glowing orifices at the elbow joints. Small flames licked out from them in time with the creature's breath.
The creature casually walked off of the platform, and the purpose of the bizarre not-wings became clear. Twin gouts of green flame blasted downward as it fell, slowing the drop and allowing it to land with barely a thump. Once on the ground, it walked to the door in the tree and opened it, looking for all the world like a bizarre parody of the doorpony of an upscale hotel.
What strode out of the doorway was, if anything, even stranger than its draconic attendant. It was pony-shaped and -sized, a casual glance making it appear to be nothing more than a lavender unicorn mare. Then the details, the deviations from the norm, began to register. Silver shone on her hooves, flowing up her legs here and there like a stretching axon or an exploring slime mold. A hint of the same was visible now and again in her tail, as though the flesh beneath the hair had become metal. Her horn was similarly metallic, in addition to being longer and sharper than was acceptable for polite society. A crown of some sort rested on her head, or perhaps it extended from it. The line between jewelry and scalp seemed oddly blurred. Most disturbing of all were her eyes, matte spheres of solid black, swallowing any light that fell into them.
She turned those empty orbs to the reptile and nodded to it. "Thank you, Spike."
"Of course, Mistress," answered the dragon, its subdued baritone resonating in the listener's bones nonetheless.
The murmuring of onlookers rose to a new level. The coloration and cutie mark had suggested it, the name of the dragon all but confirmed it, but such an idea was unthinkable. Surely this aberration couldn't be Twilight Sparkle? What could make this from the redeemer of Nightmare, the vanquisher of Discord, the daughter of Celestia in all but blood? What had she done with the Element of Magic?
The unicorn looked around as though noticing the growing crowd for the first time. She smiled, revealing teeth that seemed more like a mouthful of needles, and her voice boomed at near-Royal volumes. "Greetings, citizens of Canterlot. When I first left you, I was a hermit, more concerned with hoarding knowledge than using it to enrich the lives of ponykind. When I last left you, I was hailed as a heroine, a paragon of Magic and Harmony, but I was still in so many ways a naive child, blind to the ways of the world."
She strode towards her audience and they parted before her like fog in a stiff wind. "Now," she continued, toning it down a bit given her proximity, "I come to you enlightened, augmented, compleated. I come as a prophet of purest Harmony, of greatest Magic, of ultimate Friendship. My friends, I travel the road to utopia. Will you walk with me?"
The crowd talked amongst itself, concern and confusion rampant. Finally, one stallion dared to address her directly. "What's wrong with your eyes?"
Twilight was, for a moment, nonplussed. Her smile, when it returned, was a bit less self-assured. "There are some cosmetic sacrifices to be made," she conceded, "but that is a small price to pay for—"
The crack in the dike grew, and no foal's hoof would stem the tide.
"What's with your hooves?"
"Is that a horn extension?"
"Are you blind, or have you just not looked in a mirror lately?"
"What's the name of the cult?"
"When's the movie coming out?"
"Does your dragon wax his mustache?"
The Bearer of Magic nickered in frustration, muttered "Fillystines," and turned back around. To Spike, she said, "Just take us to Celestia. They are not yet ready."
"At once, Mistress," answered the dragon, kneeling down and lifting her up, arms wrapped around her belly, giving the unicorn the perfect angle for derisively glaring at the ignorant herd. A deep breath, and he rose on twin plumes of green fire, rocketing off towards the castle.
His name was Geth. Even when he'd been alive, he had understood how the world worked. Power determined status and attracted envy. The strongest ruled while everyone else gazed covetously at the throne. Given time, someone would amass power enough to overthrow the old guard, declare himself king of the hill, and start the cycle over again.
However, when Geth got his turn, he'd already figured out how to keep the next guy from getting his. It was a matter of a few simple principles. Offer a sliver of power in exchange for fealty. Make any potential usurpers work for you. Ensure that the consequences for initiative, ambition, and betrayal are very well understood. Oh, and have the one vampire in the universe work for you. That helped significantly.
This method had worked splendidly, letting him consolidate his power over the Mephidross and its inhabitants for decades. It probably would have kept working for at least another century if a certain elf hadn't gone and thrown a wrench into the whole scheme, kicking off a cascade of events that ended with the vampire population of Mirrodin increased by several orders of magnitude, the world as a whole going crazy, and Geth himself getting dethroned, decapitated, and generally disrespected. Oh, losing everything from the neck down was inconvenient, sure, but the warlord had been undead for years beforehand. Just better preserved than the average nim.
In any case, by the time things had settled down to some semblance of non-lunacy, there was a new sun in the sky, the Dross had about doubled in size, and Geth's body had been replaced by an uppity construct about as big as his own desiccated cranium. Oh, and everyone but the elf, her pet goblin, and some idiot kids had vanished from Mirrodin at about the same time that a bunch of monstrosities started forming in the inner part of the world.
Geth had seen the writing on the wall and had sided with the monsters. Call him a turncoat if you wanted, he thought of himself as a pragmatist. It wasn't like the Mirrans were offering him a new, improved body. For scrap's sake, even the elf changed teams! If all his signup bonus cost him was some lip service and the occasional genuflection towards some babbling golem, it wasn't any mummified skin off of his nose.
But, of course, things just couldn't stay nice for the poor, beleaguered Lord of the Vault. As if jockeying for position with a half-dozen assholes of varying sphincter diameter weren't enough, now there was some kind of explosive last hurrah from the losing side trying to take as many nim as it could with it to oblivion.
Well, never let it be said that old Geth had forgotten how to administer some good, old-fashioned discipline. He eased his massive, twisted form into motion, ready to deal with the upstart personally if need be.
He never expected it to come to him. "Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie."
The necromancer paused, his necrogen-pickled mind taking a moment to recognize genuine warmth and openness. "You," he said finally, "are a tiny horse."
"I prefer 'pony.' I mean, I don't call you a monkey head. Unless you want me to. Do you want me to, Mister Monkeyhead?"
A long and productive – if briefly interrupted – lordship over Ish Sah, the Vault of Whispers, literal and figurative seat of power in the Mephidross, left Geth wholly unprepared for the enigma that was Pinkie Pie. So he decided to disregard said enigma and try his usual methods. "What do you want?"
"Wow, you don't beat around the bush, do you, Mister Monkeyhead? What do I want? What do I want?" The mare pondered this for a moment. "Ooh! Do you have any jellybeans?"
"...What."
"Hmm, guess not. What about taffy?"
Geth sighed. "Look, I'm a busy corpse. If you're not going to make a serious request, either leave or die. You'd make a nicely unique nim."
The party pony's enthusiasm seemed wholly unaffected by the explicit reference to her demise. "Oh, you silly willy legendilly! Those were serious requests. Candy is serious business." Her smile and voice both suddenly took on a sinister undertone. "But then, so is praetorship."
The zombie was silent for a moment, trying to work through the non sequitur. "You're joking. You're joking, right?"
"I'm as serious as a flagrant breach of contract, Gethy-boy, and with all the attendant consequences."
Geth grudgingly admitted that it would've been a good taunt coming from something he could take seriously. Soul contracts were his tool and weapon of choice these days, spelling out in no uncertain terms the myriad ways in which he owned his co-signatory. As it was, the attempt at intimidation just got a chuckle out of his leathery lips. "'Pinkie Pie,' was it? What exactly do you think you're doing? You're a tiny pink horse trying to intimidate something twenty times your size. The only reason I haven't squished you like a bug is that you're amusing me. What do you hope to accomplish here?"
For all the menace Pinkie had called to bear, her smile itself was still the warm and innocent thing so familiar to Ponyville. "What do I hope to accomplish? Well, when I've got enough demolition charges spread throughout the building to set off a chain reaction of necrogen vapor fuel-air explosions that will send this heap of scrap tumbling into the core of the plane, rather a lot. Especially since they're tied to a deadpony switch."
The Lord of the Vault scoffed at this. "An empty bluff, and a terrible one at that. Even if it were true, you can't make good on the threat without killing yourself."
The mare smirked. The Vault shook. A greenish flare burst into brief existence overhead and a misshapen hunk of metal hit the floor exactly one foot from Geth's right legs. "My family harvests rocks for a living," noted Pinkie. "My mama has two experstises: Pickled beets and precisely aimed demolitions. I learned from the best, Moriok. Still willing to call my bluff?"
Geth glared at the presumptuous pony. Oh, now he was in familiar territory. He brought a massive arm up to bear.
"Deadpony switch, remember?" chided Pinkie.
"Who said you'll be allowed to die?"
The earth pony sighed, rolled her eyes, and blew up the floor behind her adversary's throne. Conveniently enough, his bulk was just the right shape to shield her from the shrapnel. "None of that, Gethy-boy. The charges are insurance. You and I are going to..." and here she smirked; "negotiate."
Susan Unity Pie was by no means faint of heart. If some ponies had nerves of steel, hers were of titanium. She had faced down rapacious Diamond Dogs, hungry geopedes, and even peckish migratory dragons without even blinking. Of course, petriculture-grade explosives made for an argument few could refute.
Still, when her heart leapt up into her throat while she was doing nothing more than sitting on her front porch, she knew something was wrong. "Clyde," she said to her husband, "where's Blinkastasia?"
The old stallion gave her a querulous look. "Should be out in the east field about now."
"Incantessa?"
He shrugged. Without ire, he answered, "Either in her apartment in Manehattan, pretending we don't exist, or living in sin with that unicorn harlot she thinks we don't know about."
"And Pinkamena?"
"What's this about, dear?"
Sue shook off the chill her preternatural senses were sending up and down her spine. "One of our daughters has just done something incredibly foalish and dangerous, and I want to know who."
Clyde sighed. "Probably Pinkamena, then."
Most beings capable of flight still sought audiences with Celestia through conventional means, i.e., the Day Court. Very few of them had the lack of tact, patience, or sense that would send them directly to her balcony. It said quite a bit about Twilight's current mental state that she chose that very approach to her mentor. So did her casual dismissal of any pursuing Skyguards in swirls of magic that sent them back to their barracks, along with a greasy little surprise in each one's blood.
In any case, Spike landed on the balcony with only minor scorch marks on the landscaping, knelt, and released his mistress. She walked through the glass sliding doors as if they weren't there – a quantumantic manipulation so simple a toddler could do it, assuming that said toddler had access to the Star Swirl the Bearded Wing's restricted codices – and considered the princess's quarters. The unicorn had only been here a few times in her life, when Celestia wanted to focus less on applied sorcery and more on philosophy, on the burden of power, the proportional responsibility that came with it, and other such pap.
For pap it was, when it came down to it. Oh, power shouldn't be an excuse for tyrannical bullying, of course, but it also didn't automatically come with chains of servitude. Power was simply a tool. For good or for ill, what really mattered was what the powerful made of it.
Twilight knew what she wanted to make of hers, and she suspected Celestia did as well. Still, she had learned her lessons well, especially those about making assumptions. She was going to check, and this was the sort of fine, nuanced matter that was better discussed through a live audience than letters, even those expedited by dragonflame.
"Princess?" called the mare. "Are you here?" It was entirely possible that she wasn't. Probable even, unless she was taking her lunch in her rooms today.
A reply came in the form of an understandable question. "Twilight? What are you doing here?"
Ah. Luck was on her side. Good. She wouldn't have to expend the energy necessary to convince it. "I take it you received my last letter?"
"Yes, I was just meeting with Luna and Shining Armor." Celestia came into view, resplendent as always. "I was actually about to send you a reply when—" She stopped, stunned by the changes wrought in her faithful student. "Twilight? What in Equestria has happened to you!?"
The unicorn smiled, needleteeth arranged in beautiful parallel lines. "Is it not glorious, my Princess? I have borne witness to an expression of Harmony greater and more pure than any I could have ever conceived. And I can make that vision a reality!"
The sun deity seemed displeased, judging by the blast of solar plasma she launched at the mare. The look of righteous fury was also something of a tipoff. "I do not know what you have done with Twilight Sparkle, demon, but you will live to regret it."
Despite her near brush with vaporization, Twilight seemed more intrigued than afraid. "Wait, demons are real? Interesting..." Her ruminations were cut short by having to dodge another bolt of unfathomable heat. "Princess, please! It's really me!"
Celestia sneered. "I've seen better disguises from blind changelings, fiend. Now face the consequences of daring to impersonate my pupil!" A ball of sunfire gathered at the tip of her horn, building in size and intensity until it was a white-hot melon-sized orb of incandescent fury. With a cry that had spelled the end of countless denizens of the Pit, the alicorn launched it at the purple pony.
Said purple pony did more than watch this spectacle, of course. She projected a hair-thin ray of fuschia light from her own horn, skewering the miniature star like a superheated cocktail olive. The fireball went from white to blue, then burst into harmless sparks. Twilight looked at her mentor with a blend of worry and awe. "The Nova Gloriosa. I... I've read about that spell, but I've never... You really don't think I'm me, do you?"
It was the same expression once worn by a filly who had insisted that she was only getting that second cookie for Smarty Pants. Celestia slumped to her haunches, horrified. "Twilight? H-how can this be?" She looked around the room. "Where are the other Bearers? Where is Spike?"
"My friends and I may have come to a bit of a disagreement on the fruits of my labor," Twilight admitted sheepishly. She quickly perked up. "Oh, but Spike is right here!" She unlocked and opened the balcony doors with a thought. "See?"
The princess did, much as she wished she couldn't. Spike, the darling little wyrmling she had entrusted to and with her student, had been twisted into something the alicorn had never before seen in all her millennia of life. "What has done this to both of you?"
"It is the essence of the enemy we warned you about," explained Twilight, "but I believe that by uniting it with the magic of Friendship, we can turn it against its former masters. It seeks to unify, to support, to perfect. It seeks Harmony! Think of what we could do with such power, Princess! Imagine what ponykind would be capable of!"
Celestia was unimpressed. "But would we even be ponies anymore?"
Her student pressed on. "Would it matter? What if this could make us better?"
"Better according to whom? I have never dared to exercise my authority in such a way, Twilight. Are you saying that you would act as the arbiter of equinity's future? That you know what is best for every mare, stallion, and foal in this nation?"
The unicorn considered this for a moment, weighing her ruler's words against her earnest convictions. Finally, she looked Celestia in the eye and answered, "Yes. Yes I am."
The sun princess shook her head. "It pains me to hear you say that, my student. I never thought you of all ponies would fall so far." Once more, the diarch's horn shone with the brilliance of the noonday sun. Her eyes welled with tears of regret even as they glowed with celestial power. "I'm sorry, Twilight."
The young mare bowed her head. "As am I, Celestia." She then looked back up and spat forth a torrent of viridian ooze.
Taken aback, the princess launched the half-formed petrification spell to waylay the gunk. Amazingly, the bolus of energy only seemed to encourage it. The light sank into the slime, which rapidly multiplied thereafter.
From there, it took only the slightest brush against the alicorn's coat to seal her fate and her body. Once contact was made, the glop flowed over her body with blinding speed, forming itself into an ellipsoid and solidifying in the blink of an eye.
Twilight smiled, the green glow fading from her eyes as the changeling magic finished shaping itself. "I know I've thanked you countless times for letting me try to dig through Chrysalis's unconscious mind when we were looking for Cadence, but I don't think I ever gave thanks for my exposure to an entire race's magical knowledge all at once. It was a learning experience in every sense of the phrase."
Her grin grew smug. "It's almost amusing, isn't it? Such a simple spell, and yet it can render a living goddess utterly helpless." She began to pace around the cocooned princess. "As with any changeling magic, it feeds on the love of its victim. But you, you are so incredibly full of love and compassion, you care so very, very much for your ponies, that you make the spell almost indestructible."
Celestia couldn't speak, submerged as she was in the foul ooze, but she could look upon her student with a mix of anger and disappointment.
"It's depressingly easy to dispel such a construct," continued Twilight, "even from the inside. You just have to not care. But you can't do that, can you? You couldn't be apathetic about your subjects any more than the sun could will itself to stop shining. That's why I love you, you know. That unquenchable, irrepressible love for each and every one of your ponies. Even me. Even now."
The unicorn's expression was tricky to quantify. There was a measure of smug triumph there, yes, but also compassion, adoration, a student's pride, even pity. It was, in a word, complicated, as were the feelings fueling it. "Don't worry, Princess. The Guards will find you soon enough. They should even be able to unseal you in short order. But when they do, well, I'd recommend ceding solar management to Luna while you recover. No hard feelings, but now that I know that you don't approve of the new me, I need you out of the way for a few days, and I'm pretty sure the best method wouldn't work on you."
After a departing kiss on the stiff membrane, Twilight turned and went back to the balcony, Spike following in her wake. "Enjoy your break, Celestia. I'll see you soon."
And Celestia, Princess of the Sun, Regent of the Day, Mistress of the Waking Hours, could do nothing more than watch as her faithful student flew off, her soul becoming ever more tarnished.
Celestia's Ire XW
Instant
Celestia's Ire deals X damage divided as you chose among up to X target attacking and/or blocking creatures.
"A declaration of war on my little ponies is tantamount to one on me personally, and it will be answered as such."
—Celestia, Princess of the Sun
Spike, the Blight Dragon 2UBR
Legendary Creature — Dragon Minion
Flying; infect
Whenever Spike, the Blight Dragon deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2U. If you do, draw a card for each poison counter on that player, then discard half that many cards, rounded up.
B: Regenerate Spike.
R: Spike gains haste until end of turn.
3/3
Stats
Page generated in 0.062 seconds
Total duration
903 users online
330,847 hits today, 2,314,256 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Oh, crap. Time for somepony
to layeth upon Twilight a smackdown. When the pony I have in mind does do so, it won't be by accident; she WILL understand what went wrong. 
Oh lordy.
Jesus Spike is big...
Twilight's gone off the deep end again... this is where everything goes to crap. Luna! Drop the moon!
Good chapter, just a slight adjustment for the card. It should be y for the second one. How it is worded, you do an amount of damage divided among an equal amount of damage. As in, you can only do one damage to x amount of creatures. Just a technical thing I've learned to pick up from creating fake cards and playing the game.
1692235 That would be what the "up to" clause is for. You can target anywhere from one to X creatures with Celestia's Ire and divide the damage among them however you like. Thanks for the heads up, but you're not the only one who makes fake cards on a regular basis, my friend.
1694635 Ah, thank you, I missed the may.
img15.imageshack.us/img15/8027/skittlessm.jpg
Skittles, the Bright Dragon
Taste the Infection
This is actually one of my custom playmats. (I seem to have lost the larger versions of the image.
) Let me say, the Phyrexian text on the left side was a b
h.
(The Phyrexian Text simply says 『TASTETHEINFECTION』)
Very chilling.